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protecting homes businesses health and the environment since 1860.
The more I study natural history, the better I like it.
There's a charm in it which none but a naturalist can understand. The state of Illinois offers a
peculiarly rich feel to the investigator in every department of natural science.
This is particularly the case with reference to its animal life.
Well-known eastern species occurring in close connection with western forms,
while, by its great length, it serves to connect in a most remarkable manner the
faunas of the north and south to a degree not paralleled by any other state in The Union.
By the cultivation of false taste, we have become almost hereditarily possessed of bad
and unusual prejudices against some of our inferior fellow creatures.
What wonder if people with such correct appreciation of the beautiful should sneer
at the student of nature possessed of so uncouth a taste as to admire a reptile or insect, not that
there is anything wrong with them, but because in our egotism to admire solely our own productions,
we have finally not only lost our ability to justly appreciate nature's beauties, but have had
our ideas so perverted that we have come to look upon some really perfect animals as disagreeable.
If an animal seems disagreeable, study it with care and see how in its organization
and habits it is so admirably adapted to fill a certain place in nature's magnificent system.
However injurious wild animals may be to man,
he should not forget that he himself is very often the cause of their undue destructiveness.
When destroying his crops they are only following the instincts
with which they have been endowed by the Creator.
Ruled by all wise laws, every animal fills its appointed place exactly
existing not alone for itself but forming a necessary part of the vast system of nature.
One class of animals keeps in check certain plants,
others prevent too great an increase in these, while those having few enemies are not prolific.
Man interferes unwisely and the order is broken.
Look at creation with intelligence worthy of reasonable beings. It is perfect.